Double delight for Lancaster singer

A talented Lancaster singer-songwriter is celebrating a double music success.

Imogen Mechie is set to appear on a new Saturday night BBC TV show hot on the heels of the premiere of her first self-written musical.

Imogen, a former Lancaster Girls’ Grammar pupil, will compete in ‘Pitch Battle’ on BBC1.

The new show, hosted by Mel Giedroyc, will see vocal groups do battle hoping to impress a judging panel including choirmaster Gareth Malone, and pop stars Kelis and Joe Jonas.

Imogen, 22, performs with an a capella group called The Oxford Alternatives who will sing on the July 1 episode.

“We’re the oldest a capella group in Oxford and we do house music and dance music, then turn it into a capella,” she said.

“I also got to sing with Joe Jonas!”

She filmed the episode at Media City in Manchester in between rehearsals for the debut of her musical ‘Merlot and Royal’.

The musical played to crowds at the Tingewick Theatre in Oxford for three nights in late May.

Imogen, who is studying medicine at Oxford after moving there from Cambridge University last September, wrote it when she was 15 years old.

‘Merlot and Royal‘ is the name of a 1950s bank, run by a man called Robert Merlot. But then Merlot dies and the bank is handed over to his son, who isn’t ready to run a bank because he’s a bit of a playboy.

The story is about how the advisers of the bank take it uipon themselves to find young Merlot a wife.

“It was a wonderful project to put on,” said Imogen.

“It was very nice to see it come to life.”

Imogen’s first major musical success came at the age of 15 when she reached the finals of the 2010 Young Songwriter of the Year competition.

She then released two albums, the second under her stage name Imogen Rae, and performed at the Lancaster Christmas Lights switch-on in 2015.

And busy Imogen shows no signs of slowing down her packed and energetic life in music and medicine.

Aside from recording Pitch Battle, directing the musical, doing her medical research paper and attending medicine and surgery placements at hospitals in the Oxford area, Imogen has also somehow found time to record a new single ‘There Must Be Light’ to raise money for mental health charities and also produce the music for her boyfriend’s wildlife documentary!